Archive | April

In the early years of aviation, pilots would fly only in daylight, or when the weather was clear so they could see a road or other landmarks. Now pilots use advanced computer guidance systems and sophisticated instrumentation. Today’s professional pilot would reject yesterday’s logic of visible flying as obsolete. One now pilots an airplane by […]

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On-line technologies permit assessment of the entire motor system to facilitate troubleshooting. Maintenance experts agree that excessive heat causes rapid deterioration of motor winding insulation. The common rule states that insulation life is cut in half for every 10 C of additional heat to the windings. As an example, if a motor that would normally […]

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One of my weaknesses in my life as a vibration analyst/instructor is difficult to confess, as it is shameful. For about the first 10 years of training others, advising, and consulting on tough machinery vibration problems, I concentrated on instrument readings and technical and practical knowledge. I paid attention to the specialists, engineers, supervisors, and […]

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Robert C. Baldwin, CMRP, Editor “Focus on your core competencies and outsource everything else.” When I mentioned that business mantra in this column a couple months ago, I was referring to the possibility that a maintenance organization is ripe for outsourcing if it can’t demonstrate that it is a core competency of the enterprise. I […]

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The reliability block diagram is the cornerstone of the availability model because it shows how failure in a plant element affects process uptime. Over the past several years, managers up through the CEO have come to recognize equipment uptime as a key part of any successful operating strategy. Equipment availability is one of the key […]

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In the spring of 2000, Kenora Forest Products (KFP), a Prendiville Industries company located in Kenora, ON, was a moderately successful lumber mill. Our workforce consisted of approximately 10 maintenance personnel and 80 production personnel, one maintenance superintendent, and one electrical/instrumentation supervisor. Mill output was approximately 52 million board ft/yr of spruce, pine, and fir […]

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Last article of a four-part series covering alignment fundamentals and thermal growth, and highlighting the importance of field measurements through two case studies. The previous article in this series, “Determining Accurate Alignment Targets” (MT 2/03, pg. 45), presented an example of thermal growth and its affect on equipment alignment at a wastewater treatment plant in […]